Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 83

Caitlin Johnstone: The US Is Preparing For WWIII While Expanding Draft Registration

By Caitlin Johnstone, Substack, 6/18/24

So I guess we should probably talk about the way NATO powers are rapidly escalating toward hot war with Russia at the same time the US is expanding its draft policies to make it easier to force more Americans go and fight in a giant war.

In an article titled “NATO: 500,000 Troops on High Readiness for War With Russia,” Antiwar’s Kyle Anzalone highlights NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s comments on Friday stating the alliance actually has a far greater number of troops it could deploy than the 300,000 it had previously set as its goal.

“Allies are offering forces to NATO’s command at a scale not seen in decades,” Stoltenberg said on Friday. “ Today we have 500,000 troops at high readiness across all domains, significantly more than the goal that was set at the 2022 Madrid Summit.”

Anzalone writes the following:

“The alliance hit its goal as its members significantly ratcheted up support for Kiev in recent weeks. The US and several other nations also recently gave a green light for Ukraine to use their weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

“The Netherlands and Denmark plan to supply Kiev with F-16s in the coming months, and say the advanced aircraft could be used to bomb Russia. Stoltenberg added that he welcomes the policy shift, and said it should not be considered an escalation by Russia.”

This comes shortly after we learned that NATO is developing multiple “land corridors” to rush troops to the frontline of a future hot war with Russia in eastern Europe.

It also comes as we learn from Stoltenberg that NATO is considering increasing the number of nuclear weapons it has on standby, meaning ready to use in a nuclear war. White House spokesman John Kirby bizarrely told the press that this aggressive move should not be seen as a provocation towards Russia, because NATO is a “defensive alliance”.

“How can this not be perceived as provocation or an escalation of tension in Europe?” Kirby was asked regarding Stoltenberg’s recent comments.

“Who would perceive it as a provocation or an escalation?” Kirby responded.

“Russia,” the reporter answered.

“Oh, Russia, Russia, the same country that invaded Ukraine which posed absolutely no threat to them,” Kirby replied indignantly, saying, “NATO is a defensive alliance and NATO countries are some of the most sophisticated in the world when it comes to military capabilities. And it would be irresponsible and imprudent if we weren’t constantly talking to our NATO allies about how to make sure we can meet our commitments to one another across a range of military capabilities, and that’s as far as I’ll go.”

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe these days is that surrounding its official enemies with existentially threatening war machinery should always be seen as a defensive measure. The last time a credible military threat was placed near the US border, Washington responded so aggressively the world almost ended. Yet nations like Russia and China are expected to let the US and its allies amass military threats right near their borders without even regarding this as a provocation.

This and other frightening nuclear escalations with Russia are happening at the same time US lawmakers are working to expand draft registration to women and to automate registration for men, both of which would help broaden the pool of warm bodies the US would have available to throw into a hot war with a major military power.

Edward Hasbrouck writes the following for Antiwar:

“The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved a version of the NDAA that would expand Selective Service registration to include young women as well as young men. This version of the NDAA will now go to the floor as the starting point for consideration and approval by the full Senate.

“Also on June 14th the full House of Representatives approved a different version of the NDAA that would make Selective Service registration automatic while keeping it for men only.”

As Reason’s CJ Ciaramella explains in an article about this move to automate draft registration, the official reason for this push is to make the system run more efficiently, but “The other, unspoken effect would be removing young men’s choice to engage in civil disobedience.” If the US war machine starts a new horrific conflict that the Zoomers don’t believe in, ideally you want to make it as hard as possible for them to resist being fed to the cannons.

The draft is one of those things that gets more disgusting the more you think about it, especially in a nation whose government is as belligerent and psychopathic as the USA’s. These freaks can engage in any amount of brinkmanship they like with nations they have no business fighting — all without any of their actions ever being put to a vote from the general public — and then if it goes hot they get to turn to a bunch of kids in their teens and early twenties and say “This isn’t our problem, it’s your problem. Go fight and kill and die for your country.” They can start a war with their own recklessness and then chill out and sip martinis while your kids go get killed in it.

This is evil, this is ugly, and it needs to stop.

***

Why is NATO expanding its nuclear force?

By Stephen Bryen, Asia Times, 6/18/24

Jens Stoltenberg, the 13th secretary general of NATO, says that the alliance is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons and modernize their delivery systems. Stoltenberg told the Telegraph in the UK: “I won’t go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That’s exactly what we’re doing.” Stoltenberg emphasized that NATO is a “nuclear alliance.”

He explained: “NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons. But as long as nuclear weapons exist we will remain a nuclear alliance, because a world where Russia, China and North Korea have nuclear weapons and NATO does not is a more dangerous world.”

The Russians say that Stoltenberg’s nuclear weapons declaration was “bully tactics.“

Stoltenberg could not act on NATO’s nuclear deterrent without deep coordination with the United States. Thus the NATO expansion of nuclear weapons has to be a Biden administration policy and program.

Nuclear sharing in NATO

NATO’s nuclear deterrence is based on nuclear sharing arrangements. As described officially,

NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture also relies on the United States’ nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe, as well as on the capabilities and infrastructure provided by Allies concerned. A number of NATO countries contribute a dual-capable aircraft (DCA) capability to the Alliance. These aircraft are central to NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission and are available for nuclear roles at various levels of readiness. In their nuclear role, the aircraft are equipped to carry nuclear weapons in a conflict, and personnel are trained accordingly.

The United States maintains absolute control and custody of their nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe, while Allies provide military support for the DCA mission with conventional forces and capabilities.

While NATO’s nuclear weapons are American, the UK and France have nuclear weapons too.

US nuclear weapons stored in Europe are nuclear gravity bombs that can be launched either by NATO aircraft or by the US operating independently of NATO.

Technically, nuclear gravity bombs fall into the category of tactical nuclear weapons. The US, UK and France also deploy strategic nuclear weapons in and around Europe. The UK has around 225 nuclear warheads (more than half in storage) for its Trident nuclear submarine program. The British nuclear capability requires US coordination.

France is the only NATO country with a fully independent nuclear arsenal. It consists of ballistic missile submarines and a small number of cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. The French have floated the idea of replacing the US nuclear deterrent with a French one and there have been discussions with Germany about the idea.

To some degree, Stoltenberg’s announcement on upgrading NATO’s nuclear alliance could be interpreted as offsetting French pressure to diverge from the US-led deterrent in Europe.

There has long been suspicion in Europe that the US would not launch nuclear weapons to defend European territory because of the risk of a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. To an unknown extent, the presence of tactical nuclear weapons (under US control) is intended to enable the US to use the tactical part of its nuclear arsenal – reducing the risk of a strategic nuclear exchange with Russia.

Yet it is certainly the case that Stoltenberg’s emphasis on NATO as a nuclear alliance was primarily intended to offset fears that Russia could turn to nuclear weapons to settle the Ukraine conflict. Compared with the US, Russia has a vast arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. And many of its tactical missiles can be equipped with nuclear warheads. In fact, the Ukrainians have been warning Europe that this is exactly what Russia could do.

The Russians have been conducting nuclear exercises and claim to have put nuclear weapons in Belarus, although none have been spotted there as of now. Likewise the US has been flying its strategic bombers close to Russia’s borders, as a US warning.

Ukraine has also attacked two sensitive radar sites that are important parts of Russia’s early warning system. It is not clear why these targets were selected whether by Ukraine or by NATO, which supplies the weapons and intelligence for these attacks.

NATO relies on nuclear gravity bombs for deterrence. These weapons would be delivered against Russian targets by NATO aircraft. About 150 bombs are stored at six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Base in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands and Incirlik in Turkey. These are part of NATO’s nuclear sharing agreement.

In addition, the US announced in January that it was upgrading parts of the RAF Airbase at Lakenheath, Suffolk, in the UK. There a special squadron, the 48th Security Force, of F-35s will be capable of carrying B-61 gravity bombs. The US is building special hydraulic loading ramps, upgrading storage facilities and installing a nuclear “shield” to protect personnel at the base.

These F-35s will be operated solely by US pilots and are outside of NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement – meaning that their mission could be linked to NATO’s security and deterrence but could be used outside of any general NATO agreement.

US B-61 gravity bombs are close to completing a modernization program (Mod 12). The B-61 is a “dial-a-yield” weapon, meaning that the bomb yield can be adjusted to fit specific targets. The US also will retain some Mod 11 B-61 bombs.

The Mod 11 B-61 is regarded as a bunker buster bomb and is not “dial a yield.” It has a special 400 kiloton warhead. About 30 of these bombs were manufactured. It is not clear if they are deployed in Europe.

The Mod 12 B-61 can select yields (in kilotons) from .3, 1.5, 10 or 50 kt. For comparison purposes, the Hiroshima bomb was between 11 and 16 kt.

The modernization of the B-61 requires the modernization of the delivery systems, including changes in the aircraft’s electronics. There is very little information on how quickly the upgrades and changes can be made. New F-35s can carry B-61 bombs if they are equipped to do so. It isn’t known how many of the F-35’s delivered to Europe are nuclear capable.

Many unanswered questions

It is important to point out that neither the US nor NATO has any treaty obligation, or any other responsibility, to protect Ukraine from a nuclear attack. Thus NATO deterrence, at least insofar as it is understood, does not apply to Ukraine in any formal manner. But that does not mean that Stoltenberg, and by proxy the United States, is not shifting the alliance to extending a nuclear umbrella over Ukraine.

One reason to assess there may be a change in strategy underway is the NATO-US decision to unleash long-range weapons in Ukraine on Russian territory.

In the proxy wars prior to Ukraine, the US and Russia have been careful to avoid directly attacking each other. That is why Truman was against US forces crossing the Yalu River in Korea; why neither China nor Russia was attacked in the Vietnam war; why in the Cuban missile crisis President John F. Kennedy refused any nuclear attack on Cuba and the Soviet Union.

But there were moments when tensions grew to approach the nuclear threshold. That was especially the case in 1973 when Russia began threatening intervention with nuclear weapons in the Yom Kippur war, and when the US declared a DEFCON-3 alert.

In the context of superpower rivalries, and proxy and other conflicts (the Cuban Missile Crisis was not a proxy conflict but a direct confrontation between the US and USSR), NATO-approved attacks on Russian territory appear to cross a dangerous red line.

When combined with the no-negotiations, no-talks, no-peace posture of the US and most of Europe regarding Ukraine, the danger of an expanding conflict – even one involving nuclear weapons – is increasing. Upgrading nuclear arsenals in that context adds fuel to the fire.

Russia ‘done’ with Western Europe ‘for at least a generation’ – Lavrov

RT, 5/18/24

Russia won’t view Western European countries as partners again for “at least one generation,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has predicted.The diplomat remarked that Moscow and the West are already locked in a confrontation that has no end in sight.

Top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly described Moscow’s ongoing military conflict with Kiev as a proxy war waged by NATO against Russia. Evidence of this, the Kremlin says, is the material aid, the training, and the intelligence that the US and many European countries have been providing to defend Ukraine.

Speaking on Saturday, Lavrov cited an article by Russian political scientist Dmitry Trenin, who has written that “Europe as a partner is not relevant for us for at least one generation.” The minister said that he “can’t help but agree” and that Moscow is “feeling this in practice almost daily.” The senior Russian diplomat also claimed, without elaborating, that “many facts speak in favor of such a prognosis.”

“The acute phase of the military-political confrontation with the West continues [and] is in full swing,” Lavrov said, pointing to the nature of the narratives currently prevalent in the US and Europe.

In an interview with TASS on Friday, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Ryabkov compared Western elites to delinquent youths and provocateurs intent on escalating tensions to the brink of a “catastrophic collapse,” and with no regard for the consequences.

Speaking of the work of Russian diplomats in the West, the official revealed that it is “in a crisis-management mode, aimed at preventing an escalation into a really massive conflict.”

NATO is “a group in which we feel not an ounce of trust, which triggers political and even emotional rejection” in Moscow, Ryabkov told the media outlet.

He said that, no matter who comes out on top in the US presidential election in November, “no chance for the improvement of the situation can be seen, considering the fundamental anti-Russian consensus of the American elites.”

During his inauguration speech on Tuesday, nonetheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that Moscow does not “refuse dialogue with Western states.”

“The choice is theirs,” the president proposed, posing the question: “Do they intend to continue trying to restrain the development of Russia, continue the policy of aggression and relentless pressure that they have pursued for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?”

Tarik Cyril Amar: Betting on Armageddon: What is Zelensky’s plan now that his term is over?

By Tarik Cyril Amar, RT, 5/24/24

On 20 May, something important changed for Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. On that day, the five-year presidential term for which he had been elected in 2019 came to an end. He remains in office, however, without having to face fresh elections. Zelensky’s critics, including within Ukraine, argue that he is now illegitimate in a strict, constitutional sense – in effect, a usurper. His followers and defenders, including in the West, insist that Zelensky legally remains president under martial law.

What is clear is that, according to the Ukrainian constitution, presidential elections can be held during wartime (unlike parliamentary ones, which are ruled out), even if a lack of clarity would require amendments, as Ukrainian experts have explained in national media. Even the New York Times acknowledged as much as recently as last October. At that point, however, Zelensky himself had not yet ruled out elections and American super hawk Senator Lindsey Graham was demanding them in his usual imperious tone.

Wartime elections in Ukraine would have posed practical challenges, although these could have been overcome. For instance, back in October, Zelensky himself stated that online voting was a possibility. Western media, including the BBC, which now claim Zelensky had no legal or practical option of standing for reelection, are misinforming their audiences by simply reproducing his regime’s current talking points. Not, obviously, for the first time.

No doubt, the legal legitimacy of a president is a critical issue, especially one as high-handed and authoritarian as Zelensky has been for years and since well before the escalation of the war in February 2022. Yet what is more important are the political meaning and effects of Zelensky’s transition to past-due-date status.

In this respect, the first point to note is that is Zelensky is evading the basic accountability of an election that would inevitably increase public scrutiny of his record. Even more disturbing, however, is to see one of his closest associates turning unquestioning compliance with this move into a de facto loyalty test, complete with ominous threats. The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, a key magnate in Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party, has reportedly even called all those who doubt the president’s continuing legitimacy “enemies of the people” and “political lice.”

Of course, this rhetoric – ironically reminiscent of Stalinism – comes with the usual tired smears: Anyone who dares doubt the Zelensky regime is routinely accused of doing so at the behest of Russian agitators. Perish the thought – in Zelensky’s post-“Revolution of Dignity” and “free world” showcase Ukraine – that citizens could genuinely disagree with their superiors!

Verbal brutality of the Stefanchuk kind is especially intriguing because a reasonably reliable and recent (February) poll shows that almost 70% of Ukrainians agree that Zelensky should remain president until “the end of the state of war.” For better or worse, Zelensky’s decision to avoid elections – whatever his reasons – is not unpopular.

But a closer look at the same poll reveals why the Zelenskyites are so touchy and aggressive: Widespread consent with postponing presidential elections does not translate into the same amount of popularity for Zelensky personally, or, for that matter, for his regime. For instance, in December 2023, 34% of respondents believed that he should not stand for another election (whenever the latter were to take place). By February of this year, only three months later, that share had risen to 43%. Clearly, Ukrainians who believe that this is not the right time for presidential elections and, at the same time, that Zelensky should never be a candidate again, don’t consider elections unnecessary because they are happy with his rule.

This reflects a long-term decline: Zelensky’s popularity ratings over the course of the war show a clear pattern. Initially, the escalation of February 2022 boosted them from 37% to a whopping 90% – an obvious case of a wartime rally-around-the-leader effect. Yet, by February of this year – after the bloody and costly failure of Ukraine’s 2023 summer counteroffensive and the de facto sacking of the popular commander-in-chief and Zelensky rival Valery Zaluzhny – the president’s ratings were down to 60%.

At the same time, trust in the Zelensky regime and its policies as a whole underwent the same degradation. Also in February, Ukrainian pollsters found that, for the first time during the war, a majority of Ukrainians believed the country was moving in the wrong direction.

Now add to this picture that, in February, Ukraine’s military situation was, though by no means good, better than now and that a highly unpopular – “divisive,” as even the AP admits – mobilization law had not even been passed yet. This law is now coming into force against the backdrop of an increasingly desperate fight on crumbling frontlines. It is safe to assume that Zelensky’s standing and that of his regime have only declined further.

The question is why. Zelensky has found more than one way to undermine himself: He has adopted punishing domestic policies of a generally rapacious neoliberal kind; he has stifled politics and the media; and he has set himself up as a merciless national recruiting sergeant forcing ever more unwilling Ukrainians into a meatgrinder proxy war for the West.

But the deepest cause of his decline remains that Zelensky – the man who would be Churchill (to paraphrase Kipling) – is not meeting a key requirement of the role: He is not winning his war. Instead, he is imposing ever-growing sacrifices – plenty of “blood, sweat, and tears,” to quote the British orator – but no victory. Rather, Ukraine’s situation is only growing worse.

Indeed, the post-February-2022 war could have been avoided entirely, if Zelensky had had the consistency and courage to keep his one clear 2019 election promise, namely to pursue a negotiated compromise in earnest. The framework for such a policy existed; its name was Minsk II. But instead of using it, Zelensky, his team, and his Western backers decided to stall and deceive systematically in order to arm for a larger war. Which is what they got.

Even after all of that, there was a last chance, no longer to prevent the war but to end it very quickly, again by finally coming to a mutually acceptable compromise. We now know that such a settlement was almost achieved in the spring of 2022 – and then abandoned, in essence, because Zelensky chose, once again, to listen to the West.

Since then, he has only become more intransigent. The Zelensky we are seeing now is a man who would like nothing better than to try to escape defeat by escalating the war to an open clash between NATO and Russia. The essence of his strategy – if that is the right word for this sort of betting on Armageddon – is to make this war go global.

But the irony of all of the above is that, up until now, his endless doubling-down has secured his position and power. It may be counter-intuitive but where his crony Stefanchuk sounds like Stalin, Zelensky’s whole recipe of survival has now boiled down to “the worse, the better,” a phrase usually, if perhaps apocryphally, attributed to Lenin.

Against this backdrop, the most important point about Zelensky skirting an election is not whether he is now legitimate or not, but that this is just one more stage in that strange double trend: While his position is steadily getting weaker and his actual policies are a bloody dead end for his country and its people, he is incapable of even considering a genuine change of course.

Zelensky, the former low-taste comedian, has become a desperate high-stakes gambler who has locked himself and his whole country into a devastating sequence of losing while constantly raising the stakes. His single most urgent remaining ambition is to draw more of the world into this vortex. Zelensky should never have been president; and it is high time that he ceases to be one. Ironically, since he would probably not have been ousted in elections, there is little need to regret their loss.

Glenn Greenwald: Dangerous Calls to Capture Moscow Escalate as Western Derangement About Russia Grows

Rumble link here.

Noah Robertson: ‘They’ve grown back’: How Russia surprised the West and rebuilt its force

By Noah Robertson, Defense News, 5/21/24

The real story here is why the western expert class (exemplified by the numbskull Radakin quoted in the article) is so surprised at Russia’s resilience and resourcefulness.  There should be accountability for that kind of profound incompetence and solipsism in relation to the world’s other nuclear superpower. – Natylie

The Pentagon in March put a price tag on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking in the officer’s club at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin read a list of costs the Kremlin had tallied over two years: More than 315,000 troops killed or wounded. Over $211 billion spent. Some 20 medium or large ships damaged or sunk in the Black Sea.

“Russia has paid a staggering cost for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s imperial dreams,” Austin said, speaking before a meeting of countries that gather each month in support of Ukraine.

By April, though, Austin’s tone had changed.

At a news conference, Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, America’s top military officer, again detailed Russia’s losses. But they added another trend: Russia’s recovery.

“Russia has ramped up its production,” Austin said. “All of their defense industry really answers directly to the state, so it’s easier for them to do that a bit quicker.”

Brown put it more simply: “Russia has aggressively reconstituted its military force.”

Coming a month apart, the two sets of comments show a distinct change in how the U.S. views Russia’s military. While American officials have long detailed the costs of Moscow’s invasion for its armed forces and its economy, in the last two months they’ve started to acknowledge Russia is recovering faster than the U.S. expected.

The pace matters for Ukraine and those supporting it — in particular the U.S. government, which approved $48 billion more in Ukraine-related security aid this April. American officials say they expect that bill to sustain Kyiv for another year. But if Moscow’s recovery is a moving target, that could change.

Indeed, if the Kremlin keeps rebuilding its forces faster than expected, it could present a longer-term and perhaps costlier problem for the NATO alliance. The U.S. government’s National Defense Strategy calls Russia an “acute threat,” second to the “pacing challenge” of China.

But Moscow’s own capacity may change that.

“They are doing better than we would have thought,” a senior U.S. defense official told Defense News on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Three ways to rebuild

When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, things quickly fell apart. Enduring images of the first two months illustrated Russian frailty by showing rotting tires on armored vehicles and a convoy just outside of Kyiv that became a traffic jam.

This prompted self-reflection in the West: If Russia’s military wasn’t as powerful as defense planners had thought before the war, how quickly could it recover?

Even scientific methods to measure an opposing military are inexact, partly because those easiest to measure, such as personnel and equipment, might not be the most important given factors like corruption and morale. But estimates for how long Russia would take to reconstitute mostly fell into the five- to 10-year range, depending on how Western sanctions worked and the Kremlin’s own goals.

“There’s no question — and I think [there’s] unanimity in the intelligence community — it will take years for the Russians to build back up their ground forces,” Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said in March 2023.

Her comments came amid the annual churn of officials visiting Capitol Hill from winter to early spring. Around the same time this year, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, America’s top military officer in Europe, had a second opinion.

“The overall message I would give you is they’ve grown back to what they were before,” Cavoli said. “They’ve got some gaps that have been produced by this war, but their overall capacity is very significant still. And they intend to make it go higher.”

To some extent, the officials were discussing different elements of Russia’s force. When Haines testified last year, she was joined by the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who said Russia was five to 10 years away from reconstituting. By that, Berrier meant it would take Russia up to a decade to rebuild the high-end equipment lost earlier in the war.

Cavoli, on the other hand, was discussing the overall size of Russia’s military.

Still, European and American defense officials, along with experts on the Russian military, told Defense News the Kremlin’s force is reconstituting faster than expected. They gave three main reasons why.

The first is the resilience of Moscow’s defense industry.

During the war, Russia has almost tripled its defense budget, according to Richard Connolly, an expert on the country’s economy at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank. Russia is set to spend somewhere between $130 billion and $140 billion on defense in 2024, which is about 6% of gross domestic product and a third of the government’s overall budget, Connolly approximated.

But because costs and wages are lower in Russia than in high-income countries, like many in NATO, the Kremlin’s defense fund buys much more than it would in the United States. When that conversion is taken into account, Russia’s 2024 defense budget falls between $360 billion to $390 billion, Connolly estimated.

The spending trend itself has raised salaries. Working in the defense industry was once a middling career in Russia; it’s now lucrative and attracting more workers. Based on official Russian figures, which Connolly noted may be inflated, the number of people working in the defense industry rose 20% during the war, from 2.5 million to about 3 million now.

The funds have also gone toward procuring military hardware. Connolly estimates this share of the defense budget probably doubled during the war, helping Russia replace lost equipment.

Connolly said he doubts the state of Russia’s economy will factor into how the war ends. Moscow has a cadre of policy wonks guiding its country through sanctions, he noted, and they have lots of practice doing so. In fact, Putin recently replaced a general at the helm of the Defence Ministry with an economist.

The second reason is Russia’s ability to dodge financial penalties.

In 2022, the Biden administration and European partners passed a raft of sanctions meant to sink the Russian economy. These ranged from banning the sale of high-tech materials, such as microchips, to a price cap on Russian oil sales.

These haven’t worked, multiple analysts told Defense News. That’s in large part because Moscow has been able to reroute its supply lines through friendly countries.

Chief among those partners is China. From 2022 to 2023, trade between Russia and China grew more than 26%, hitting an all-time high of $240 billion, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Beijing largely avoided sending weapons directly. Instead, Chinese companies became a vital supplier of the items Russia needed to build weapons itself — such as microchips and small electronics.

This leads to the third point: Russia’s reconstitution has relied on surprising levels of support from other U.S. adversaries, who, unlike China, have directly provided military aid to Russia.

Since October, North Korea has sent Russia about 10,000 shipping containers, which could include up to 3 million artillery rounds, according to U.S. government figures. Russia has fired dozens of North Korean ballistic missiles since last fall, an American diplomat told the U.N. in March.

Iran has also provided materiel. Specifically, it’s sent a somewhat plodding attack drone known in Tehran as the Shahed-136 and in Moscow as the Geran-2. Russia has deployed swarms of these to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, firing more than 3,700 Shahed drones, of which there are several variants, during the war as of December, according to the Ukrainian government.

When Cavoli visited Capitol Hill in April, he came with his own list of numbers: Russia’s GDP grew 3% in 2023, despite predictions it would shrink. It can add 1,200 tanks and build at least 3 million artillery rounds or rockets each year. And through a deal with Iran, Russia plans to locally build 6,000 drones by next summer.

A February report by the RUSI think tank, cited by the unnamed senior U.S. defense official, who declined to offer a full set of American figures, said Russia can produce 3,000 armored vehicles per year and had surged its inventory of precision missiles.

Its force inside Ukraine has also grown.

Last year, Russia increased the age limit for the draft from 27 to 30, which the U.S. estimates will add a pool of 2 million eligible conscripts.

And the Kremlin set a goal to recruit more than 400,000 troops — part of a larger target to grow the military to 1.5 million service members by 2026. To do so, Russia offered lavish signing bonuses and salaries, which in some areas are more than five times the average paycheck, according to an Estonian intelligence report.

It’s unclear whether Moscow already met this goal. But Cavoli said in April that Russia was recruiting about 30,000 new soldiers per month and had surged its front-line end strength to 470,000, larger than the Russian army before the war.

Is the military growth sustainable?

In early May, Adm. Tony Radakin, the professional head of the U.K. armed forces, sat down with reporters in the British Embassy in Washington. Speaking over cookies and tea, he discussed Russia’s recent advances.

The Russian military was making marginal progress, but still relying on Soviet-era inventories to restock and struggling to train its newest recruits, Radakin said. The force was on pace to suffer 500,000 casualties by the end of June, he estimated.

“That is an astonishing loss of life and Russian nationhood that has been wasted for such modest gains,” he said.

But a day after he spoke, Russia began a new offensive near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Such attacks raise another question: How long can Russia sustain its operations?

Aside from drones, much of its wartime output has relied on vast warehouses of Soviet-era weapons. To reconstitute materiel lost in battle, Russia is emptying these, repairing the equipment and then sending it all to the front lines — one reason the estimates of Russia’s industrial capacity vary so widely.

“A lot of people are reading some headline figures and then assuming that it’s all new production,” Connolly said.

As an example, he pointed to main battle tanks. Before the war, he said, Russia was delivering about 150 to 250 a year. But of those, he assessed, about 20 to 30 would have been new, while the rest were heavily refurbished.

So while Cavoli’s written testimony in April said Russia could make up to 1,200 tanks per year, Connolly estimated that, at a maximum, 400 of those are new or heavily refurbished. Everything else, he said, is pulled from storage, lightly repaired and then deployed.

The RUSI report from February estimated about 80% of Russia’s wartime production was actually refurbished, aging materiel.

“Of course inventory becomes very important: What was that number to begin with, and what was the state of it?” Connolly said. “Truth is, nobody knows.”

European and American defense officials made the same point. Russia has vast stocks, but they’re not unlimited, which could be why it relies on partners like Iran, Belarus and North Korea.

“When you are doing the reform and you are trying to enlarge your military, you are probably losing the quality,” a defense official from a NATO member state told Defense News, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

That said, the war in Ukraine has been more about attrition than precision, the official said. In other words, it may not matter much whether Russian soldiers are using a 50-year-old T-72 tank or a new one.

The same questions of sustainability also apply to Ukraine, which has a smaller defense industry, an unreliable source of support in America, and less eligible soldiers. Earlier this year, Kyiv lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 to regenerate its armed forces.

Sitting in the British Embassy, Radakin said it would probably take about a decade for Russia to seriously threaten NATO again. Despite Russia’s refreshed troop levels, its invasion of Ukraine will eventually collapse, though he would not guess at that timeline.

“I don’t think it is sustainable,” he said. “But I don’t know at which point it becomes unsustainable.”

Kim Iversen: The US – Saudi Petro Dollar Agreement Has Officially ENDED

YouTube link here.

Helen Andrews: Is Russia Kidnapping Ukrainian Children? An alleged war crime turns out to be more complicated

By Helen Andrews, The American Conservative, 5/16/24

One of the most serious allegations of war crimes against Russia is that it kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children during its invasion and sent them to “re-education” camps in Russia and, in some cases, gave the children to Russian families to adopt. Because the children are allegedly being Russianized with the intention of eradicating their Ukrainian cultural identity, this conduct qualifies as genocide under international law.

The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over these child deportations. In March, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the “illegal kidnapping” of Ukrainian children by Russia, and the nine Republican congressmen who voted against the resolution were excoriated.

But is the charge true? Lvova-Belova says the children were evacuated from the war zone due to concerns for their safety and that children can be claimed by their Ukrainian parents or guardians in person with the proper documentation. The Kremlin also disputes the number of children removed from Ukrainian territory: Kiev says more than 19,000; Moscow says it has 600 children from Ukraine in state care.

So which side is right? A story in the Wall Street Journal this week paints a picture of a tragic situation brought about not by the wickedness of Russian authorities, but by the inherent difficulties of wartime. According to the WSJ, people who have brought money and influence to bear on this issue with the goal of rescuing Ukrainian children have discovered, upon closer examination, that the situation is more complicated than they initially thought.

In July 2023, Qatar pledged millions of dollars and diplomatic assistance to help reunite Ukrainian children with their parents and guardians. “But the wealthy Gulf state downsized initial ambitions to return thousands at once after confronting myriad logistical and political challenges,” the WSJ writes. “To date, Qatar has returned approximately 70 children in several batches, most recently when a group of 16 were reunited with their families last month. Around 29 more children are expected to be sent home soon.”

“When we started engaging with the details, it turned out that getting each child is a long process,” a Qatari official said. One challenge is paperwork. Russian authorities will not hand over a child simply on a Ukrainian claimant’s say-so. An 18-year-old girl trying to bring home her 11-year-old brother was told by his Russian foster family, “I can’t give him to you like he’s a kitten.” The two siblings were orphans; the brother’s foster parents in Ukraine did not want him back, making the question of legal guardianship tricky.

Many of these children were living in orphanages on Ukrainian territory that was seized by Russian forces, who then evacuated them. Americans trying to understand this issue need to know two things about orphanages in Ukraine. The first is that, unlike in America, children in Ukrainian orphanages often have a living parent. It is common in Ukraine for single mothers or impoverished families to send their children to orphanages hoping one day to reclaim them when their circumstances improve. This makes it difficult for Russian authorities who want to place war orphans in new homes; they don’t know which ones still have parents in Ukraine who might want them back.

The second thing is that child trafficking in Ukraine is a real problem. The U.S. State Department, the European Union, and UNICEF have all named Ukraine as a hotspot for “institution-related trafficking.” Children in orphanages have been sold to American parents by unscrupulous adoption agents or taken away on false pretenses by criminal gangs, who then use the children in any one of their various money-making enterprises. (For a fictional treatment of this issue, based on real stories, see the 2014 novel Orphanage 41 by Canadian investigative journalist Victor Malarek, an expert in human trafficking and author of the non-fiction expose The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade.)

In other words, there are good reasons why Russian authorities will not release a child simply because someone in Ukraine claims to be his rightful guardian. The desire to reunite children with their relatives must be balanced against the need to protect children from bad actors. Those concerned with the welfare of these children should put their effort into meeting the criteria the Russian authorities have set for reunification in order to bring them home as soon as possible—and leave charges of “genocide” out of it.

Riley Waggaman: Justice for Scott Ritter (and his Russian sponsor who was arrested by the FSB)!

By Riley Waggaman, Substack, 6/14/24

On June 3, US Customs and Border Protection officers seized Scott Ritter’s passport as he was boarding a flight to Istanbul en route to Russia. The former UN weapons inspector was booked to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum before embarking on a 40-day tour of Russia organized by Alexander Zyryanov, the head of the Novosibirsk Region Development Corporation.

Zyryanov was also prevented from traveling to St. Petersburg: The Novosibirsk FSB arrested him just a few hours before Ritter was supposed to fly out of JFK International Airport.

While the confiscation of Ritter’s passport has received extensive coverage in alternative media (and rightfully so), there is a conspicuous lack of discussion in independent media about Zyryanov’s curiously timed detention.

I hope that this blog post will help remedy this odd information blackout.

— Riley

“We want to have you as our guest”

How did a businessman from Novosibirsk come to be Ritter’s point man in Russia?

In a July 5, 2023 interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Zyryanov said he had been following Ritter for the “last 2-3 years” and decided to contact him upon learning of Ritter’s “dream” of visiting Russia:

I wrote him a letter saying, “Scott, I invite you, I will show you Russia without embellishment, as it really is. We want to have you as our guest.”

And he replied that he really wanted to come, but it would be difficult. He wrote: “It will be very difficult for me to live in America if I just fly. But if my book about the history of relations between America and the USSR during the disarmament of the 80s was published in Russia, then it would be easier for me, there would be fewer complaints from the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI and everyone else.”

He sent his book in English. Our professional translators translated it, and then I spent six months looking for where to publish it. And so I went to the Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. They successfully released the book, met Scott and took him to 12 cities and regions of Russia.

Zyryanov paid for everything himself. He claims he sold his “empty apartment” to finance the book’s publication and Ritter’s 12-city tour.

source: kp.ru

Ritter’s March 2023 trip was followed by even more ambitious plans: Zyryanov told Komsomolskaya Pravda that he was working with Ritter to bring influential Americans to Russia, including Tucker Carlson (who later traveled to Moscow to interview Putin in February of this year).

source: kp.ru

Ritter returned to Russia at the end of December. During his 24-day trip, he gave numerous interviews to Russian media, and recounted his visits to Chechnya, Crimea, Zaporozhe, Kherson, Lugansk, and Donetsk in a series of articles published by RT.

While Ritter was making splashes in Russian media, Zyryanov was reaching English-language audiences. With the help of an interpreter, he appeared alongside Ritter on Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” program on January 11. A week later, he participated in a special edition of Ritter’s “Ask the Inspector” livestream.

“He’s like Tom Cruise in Hollywood,” Zyryanov said of Ritter while answering questions on “Ask the Inspector” about their time together in Russia.

Ritter and Zyryanov answering questions from Komsomolskaya Pravda’s Moscow studio on January 19, 2024. source: rumble.com

Within four months of Ritter’s return to the US, Zyryanov had already organized another—and even more ambitious—tour of Russia for his American friend. On May 23, Ritter revealed that he would soon embark on an “epic journey” across the Russian Federation:

source: Telegram

The announcement included a slideshow highlighting Ritter’s close friendship with Zyryanov.

“Friendship is the glue that holds relationships together, whether it be among nations or between individuals. […] I will be returning to Russia in June and July to continue the project of friendship that Alexander and I embarked on last year.”

A week later, Ritter began marketing a “challenge coin” with proceeds “going to help fund the costs associated with the making of a three-part documentary film, Waging Peace, which covers the three journey’s undertaken by Scott Ritter in his search for the Russian soul and the ‘real’ Russia.” The coin featured Ritter, his podcast co-host Jeff Norman, and Zyryanov.

source: Telegram

If you visit ScottRitter.com you can still purchase the coin for $50—but you will not find any mention of the arrest of his “dear friend” who is prominently featured on the collectable. You will have to look elsewhere for that information.

“What kind of bribe are we talking about here?”

Zyryanov was arrested on June 3 and charged with taking a bribe in the form of “various services”.

Prosecutors claim he asked two businessmen to pay 9.5 million rubles to promote a film festival hosted by the Development Corporation. In return, they purportedly received “priority” contracts worth over 60 million rubles. Zyryanov is accused of using the arrangement to receive “personal PR” in the media.

Zyryanov expressed bafflement at the charges brought against him, noting that the film festival in question was intended as a Putin reelection campaign event that had been approved by both the Kremlin and the Central Election Commission. He told reporters who came to his court hearing:

How can it be a bribe to hold an event, namely the Family Film Festival, agreed upon by the presidential administration, approved by the election headquarters of a candidate for head of state and held under an agreement with the Central Election Commission? The media coverage did not contain information about my identity. As part of the festival, we showed 53 films to city residents, more than 3,000 spectators attended the event. What kind of bribe are we talking about here? I’ve held dozens of events, including sports and culture. Four times I organized the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Northern Military District, which was financed by businessmen. Can this also be considered a bribe?

Zyryanov isn’t the only VIP who has been targeted by the Novosibirsk FSB in recent weeks. His arrest coincided with the detention of several other high-profile businessmen and politicians in Novosibirsk, prompting media speculation that Zyryanov had fallen victim to an “intra-elite” feud ahead of next year’s regional elections.

Local media wrote on June 4 about the arrests of five “VIP officials” in Novosibirsk, including Zyryanov (pictured second to left). source: ngs.ru

At his arraignment hearing, Zyryanov denied his guilt and claimed that his arrest by the FSB Directorate for the Novosibirsk Region had been “ordered” by “one of the regional leaders”.

“Since November, they have been hinting to me that it would be a good idea to leave my position, because one of the leaders of the region is interested in promoting his protégé,” the head of the Development Corporation told reporters.

source: ngs.ru Russian outlets used not-so-subtle methods to question the true motives behind Zyryanov’s arrest. source: versia.ru

As one local media outlet explained:

In March, immediately after the end of the presidential campaign, the security forces revived the temporarily subdued machine of arrests of Novosibirsk officials , deputies, representatives of government and para-government structures. The number of arrests went into dozens when on the morning of June 3, law enforcement officers came for those involved in new criminal cases, among whom was the head of the Novosibirsk Region Development Corporation, Alexander Zyryanov.

The interests of several influential alliances converge and collide in the region. […] The claim that we are witnessing a conflict among elites is clearly supported by the words of Alexander Zyryanov himself at his court hearing, although he did not utter the name of the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly Andrei Shimkiv or Governor Andrei Travnikov. The head of the Corporation simply said: “since November they hinted that it would be a good idea to leave my position, because one of the leaders of the region wanted his protégé to take it.”

[…]

The development corporation works with commercial structures and is focused on attracting investment to the region. On March 15 and 16—that is, on the days of voting for the President of Russia—the organization hosted a film festival, Family Traditions, at the Pobeda cinema. What is the connection between investments, elections and this event? The connection is that the re-elected Vladimir Putin declared 2024 the Year of the Family, and the Development Corporation organized a film festival in support of the presidential nomination and presented it in advance at a meeting of the election headquarters.

Overcoming the demographic crisis is one of the government’s priorities. The business and political community in the region is asking the question: what did the Development Corporation do wrong by attracting private “partners” in support of the “Year of the Family”? By opening a domain with the self-explanatory name “family-filmfestival.rf”, you can read: “2024 has been declared the Year of the Family and the Novosibirsk Region Development Corporation supports this initiative, therefore, together with its partners, it is organizing a festival where all family members will find something to their liking.”

Local media also collected reactions from regional politicians who expressed support for Zyryanov and puzzlement over the allegations against him.

source: sib.fm

Russian news reports about Zyryanov’s arrest pointed to the fact that the businessman had personally traveled to East Ukraine to deliver supplies to Russian troops.

source: sib.fm

Zyryanov will remain in pre-trial detention until August 2. The court denied his request for house arrest so that he could take care of his 78-year-old mother, who is recovering from two strokes. His alleged co-conspirators in the case were released.

“This is an internal Russian thing, none of my business”

Ritter has remained tight-lipped about his “dear friend’s” arrest, choosing either to ignore his detention altogether or employ ambiguous language while mentioning it in passing.

In his first media appearance after having his passport seized, Ritter had the following exchange with Andrew Napolitano:

Napolitano: Was I with you?

Ritter: No, you weren’t. Actually, you weren’t with me because I made a phone call to you earlier in the morning recommending that you not travel to Russia. And it had nothing to do with what happened to me and everything to do with what happened to our sponsor, Alexander Zyryanov, who from my standpoint tragically was placed under arrest in Novosibirsk on his way to St. Petersburg.

Here’s the clip: [Clip available at original article]

Ritter suggested returning to this topic later. They never did.

Hours later, Ritter participated in a livestream with his podcast co-host Jeff Norman.

About 25 minutes into their discussion, Ritter decided to promote a “challenge coin” (featuring Zyryanov’s portrait) that he was selling to raise funds for his trip to Russia:

This coin is not a symbol of a failed trip. This coin is now the symbol of resistance. This is the resistance coin … We need a war chest. We need to raise money so that we can do this trip. […] The Russian government is 100% behind us. They want this project to succeed. They believe in this project. They have affirmed that.

But Ritter made no mention of Zyryanov’s arrest.

Ritter asking his viewers to buy a coin with Zyryanov’s face on it. For mysterious reasons, Ritter never mentioned that Zyryanov had been arrested just hours earlier.

Here’s the clip: [Clip available at original article]

Fifteen minutes later into the livestream, Ritter confirmed that he had advised Andrew Napolitano against flying to Russia—but said he wasn’t in a position to explain why:

This morning I called the judge and recommended that the judge not get on the airplane. There’s reasons for that and I’ll address those later when I’m able to address those. It has nothing to do with me or the judge or this trip.

The clip: [Clip available at original article]

Ritter’s most forthright comments about Zyryanov were made in a discussion with Jimmy Dore published on June 5:

The tour that I was going to take with the documentary film crew is sponsored by a Russian who I consider to be a very close friend, Alexander Zyryanov, and he’s the director of what’s known as the investment development agency of Novosibirsk. Yesterday morning I got a notification that he was arrested and charged with corruption. He denies the charges. This is an internal Russian thing, none of my business.

Here’s the clip: [Clip available at original article]

On June 11, RT.com published an article by Ritter that mentioned his Russia adventures with Zyryanov. An uninformed reader might deduce from the article that Zyryanov was a free man walking around Novosibirsk as happy as a clam.

If RT is your #1 place for Questioning More, you would never know that Zyryanov was arrested because RT’s coverage of Ritter being prevented from traveling to Russia makes no mention of the fact that Ritter’s Russian sponsor was arrested by the FSB.

source: Question More

My scientific research (“watching Scott Ritter livestreams”) ended on June 9 so if there have been relevant updates since then please let me know in the comments section and provide a link and the timestamp and I will update this blog post accordingly.

I have also searched in vain for an official statement from Ritter about Zyryanov’s arrest, but have turned up absolutely nothing. But again, I vow to promptly update this blog post if someone can point me to such a statement.

A few closing thoughts.

What the heck is going on here?

I have a few questions.

If Zyryanov’s arrest has “nothing to do” with Ritter, why is it that the Novosibirsk businessman was arrested just hours before Ritter and Napolitano were scheduled to board a flight to Russia, causing Ritter to panic and urge Napolitano to cancel his trip to St. Petersburg? The timing is mere coincidence?Ritter uses his friendship with Zyryanov to promote his “message of peace” and encourage US-Russia rapprochement. You could even say that Zyryanov is a key part of the “Ritter brand”. Their relationship is supposed to serve as an example for Washington and Moscow. So how exactly is Zyryanov’s arrest “none of Ritter’s business”? That makes zero sense.If Ritter doesn’t want to involve himself in an “internal Russia thing”—even if this “thing” involves his “dear friend” being arrested for highly dubious reasons—maybe he shouldn’t be selling coins featuring Zyryanov’s portrait? By doing so he is making Zyryanov his “business” in the most literal sense of the word. Or no? What am I missing here?If Ritter still has the “full support” of the Russian government, is he doing everything in his power behind the scenes to secure the release of his friend, and will he use his considerable social media presence to shine a light on Zyryanov’s case, which is already facing questions in Russian media?

There are about 10,000 other questions that need to be asked. For example, how is it possible that a key player Ritter’s “waging peace” campaign was tossed into prison by the FSB just hours before Ritter was slated to begin a very expensive 40-day tour of Russia?

What does this mean?

I 100% condemn the seizure of Scott Ritter’s passport. As readers of the blog know, your correspondent is not keen on passports or other forms of cattle tags.

It’s true that I very strongly disagree with Scott Ritter’s assessment of the Not-War in Ukraine, but that is totally irrelevant. He should be allowed to travel freely and say whatever he wants. Is the State Department really so frightened by Ritter’s weekly prediction that the Russian military is about to liberate Odessa? If so, that is sad.

And it is sad that two friends are being kept apart by rival spook states. Or maybe something else is going on here?

But if Ritter’s friendship with Zyryanov really is supposed to “serve as the foundation for a similar relationship between [the US and Russia]”, we are in big huge trouble.That’s just my personal opinion, though. Simpler times. source: Scott Ritter’s Telegram

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/YpmVw_kdyXY?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Tucker Carlson Interviews Jeffrey Sachs: The Untold History of the Cold War, CIA Coups Around the World, and COVID’s Origin

YouTube link here.

“We are present at the funeral of old school of diplomacy” – Valdai Club Interviews Richard Sakwa

Valdai Club/Literaturnaya Gazeta, 5/15/24

Translated by Geoffrey Roberts

Will Russia return to dialogue with the West? Or is humanity sliding from a cold war to a “hot” one? What is the essence of the Ukrainian crisis? Will we arrive at a multipolar world? Can Russia be split by inter-ethnic differences? We talk about these pressing political topics with politologist, Richard Sakwa, the leading British expert on Russia, Emeritus Professor at the University of Kent, and a member of the Valdai international discussion club.

Q: Richard, you are the author of many books and articles about Russia, you often visit our country, give lectures, and interviews. Is this causing problems for you in Britain?

In Britain they’ve made it a “moral issue” – they say you can’t have anything to do with Russia because it is at war with Ukraine. But for some reason, no one called for a boycott of the United States and Great Britain during the Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Serbia, or the destruction of Libya. I am a supporter of diplomacy; dialogue is needed now more than ever. As a scientist, I must explain what is happening, and this requires constant dialogue with colleagues and politicians. It’s good there is the Valdai Club, a classic liberal discussion platform where everyone can express their opinion.

Q: Why did the second Cold War happen if, with the disappearance of the USSR, there were no ideological contradictions left between East and West?

When George Orwell coined the term “Cold War” in a Tribune article in September 1945, few thought the concept would last long. But the first Cold War began almost immediately after World War II, and lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Then there was a 25-year “cold peace” that gave way to a new Cold War. In 2014, the European security system created as a result of the old Cold War collapsed spectacularly. Europe has lived in uncertainty for nearly thirty years, stuck with Cold War institutions and practices that have failed to develop structures and ideas anchored in the new reality.

Q: Is this what you call a crisis of purpose in Europe?

There is no goal here, because there is no dialectic of development, but there is an endless movement in a circle, causing dizziness among politicians. This is also visible at the everyday level. When I was young, even Labourites talked about specific goals: a bridge will be built here, a factory there, and a nuclear power plant there. There was always a vision of the future, there was some kind of plan. Now no one is saying where we are going. This has affected all European politics.

During the years of the “cold peace”, not a single fundamental problem of European security was resolved. It is Europe’s failure to create an inclusive and comprehensive peace regime covering the entire continent that has given rise to the current confrontation and discord. Europe has simply resumed its “civil wars”. An eloquent example is Ukraine. This conflict shows the deep “tensions” in the European order and the “failure” of the security system…The collapse of a “united and free” Europe is now obvious.

Q: Have we jumped from one Cold War to another Cold War?

Yes, and this one is much more dangerous and deeper than the first one when everything was clear: communism versus capitalism, the struggle of ideas, etc. Then the “political West” appeared. A common economic and humanitarian space emerged in Europe, and that is good. But at the same time, the American military-industrial complex also strengthened, which inevitably led to the creeping militarisation of the state and society.

The West perceived the end of the Cold War in 1989 as a victory, while in the USSR under Gorbachev they talked about a return to universal human values and counted on equal relations with the West, recognising the market economy and human rights. In 1989 Gorbachev was confident the “spirit of April 1945” – when Soviet and American soldiers embraced on the Elbe – had returned. But in the West, they long ago forgot this spirit and behaved with the USSR, and then with Russia, not as partners, but as winners. In Washington they started talking seriously about the “end of history.”

Q: After all, it was then that the United States received a decade of complete freedom of action and began to feel like “masters of the world” in the literal sense?

Yes, the disappearance of the USSR led to an imbalance, the emergence of a unipolar world in which the United States reigned supreme. But the unipolar world did not become safer and did not bring peace. America, which felt itself a hegemon, did what it wanted throughout the 90s, not paying attention to the UN and especially not remembering the “spirit of 1945.” Washington preferred to solve problems by military force.

Washington assumes systems (civilisations) cannot coexist peacefully, and that force decides everything. But Russia, China and many other countries believe the world needs a fundamentally new system of relations based on equality, and not on the forceful dictatorship of one superpower. West and East understand each other less and less.

Q: It turns out that Kipling was right when he noted in 1889 the West and the East cannot come together – East is East and West is West?

Perhaps he was right, but today it is more and more obvious that this “civilisational discrepancy” is secondary. The main reason for instability is America’s attempts to maintain global hegemony, which gives rise to a series of wars and colour revolutions. I am not an idealist, but I am convinced that such contradictions can be resolved peacefully. The idea of a pan-European home from Lisbon to Vladivostok is wonderful, but this pan-Europeanism contradicts Atlanticism, based on US hegemony. This is a strategic mistake because there can be no peace without a balance of power. The political West has, to put it mildly, been radicalized….

-Russians in such cases say oborzel: loosely translated – became insolent. Or, more politely, stopped seeing the shores.

– A very precise word! This political West “does not notice” the UN and absolutised human rights no longer protect human rights but are used as a tool to achieve geopolitical goals. Militarisation remains the “engine of the economy” and “liberalisation” – taken to the point of absurdity – has become its opposite, denying the state and thereby bringing anarchy closer. This is indicative of a “new conservatism” in the United States in which “America is above all.”

Q: I remember someone once said that “Germany above all” … It turns out that the idea of Pax Americana is alive? However, Secretary of State Blinken recently admitted that America’s hegemony is ending.

Objectively, it is ending. But in Washington they are still confident of their right to messianism and world hegemony, and they do not abandon the logic of confrontation. This became completely clear after the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia, the unprovoked war in Iraq and the destruction of Libya. It was after this that what I call Post-Western Russia began to emerge. But a “post-Westernising” Russia denies not Western civilization or culture, but those policies of the West that have become an obstacle to the creation of a pan-European home as the main condition for common security in both Europe and the world.

If you like, you can call me Britain’s last Gaullist, but I agree with General de Gaulle’s grandson, Philippe de Gaulle, who sees the solution not in strengthening and expanding NATO, but in creating a common economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Q: There cannot be normal relations with America?

Normal relationships are equal relationships. But for this, Americans must move away from Atlanticism and stop looking at the world as their backyard, where they are free to do whatever comes into their head. For now, I doubt their desire to live in a world of equals. They are accustomed to the role of hegemon and will not give it up.

Q: Is it possible today to perceive the EU and NATO as a single whole?

For me the EU was always a peace project, but, alas, it is now a war project. With the end of the Cold War, we expected the emergence of a common economic Eurasian space without borders, we expected good relations between Europe and Russia. In reality, the EU has become a political-economic appendage of NATO.

Q: Or maybe the United States simply doesn’t need a united and strong Europe? Sorry, but, for example, an alliance between Berlin and Moscow has always been a “bad dream” for the Anglo-Saxons – which means that they still don’t want to lead matters to such an alliance?

The idea of Ostpolitik dominated the minds of the Germans for a long time; it was a policy beneficial to Germany, which involved close cooperation with Russia in all spheres – from economic to humanitarian. But, as you correctly noted, such an alliance did not suit Washington and London, which means that such an alliance could not be permitted, especially when the EU became part of the political West. The “European project” is no longer working, and, unfortunately, I do not yet see any path to compromise in Europe’s relations with Russia.

Q: Have all diplomatic means been exhausted?

Today we are present at the funeral of old school of diplomacy – an institution that was based on immutable laws and rules that were observed even at the height of the Cold War. Now diplomatic dialogue has been reduced to almost zero. This is the result of the actions of the political West – of the unified system of Western political, financial and cultural institutions created and controlled by Washington and London. During the Cold War, these institutions were called upon to help the West fight the USSR. In 1989–1991, it seemed that they would die out as relics of the past. But the rudiments did not disappear, they became stronger. Now NATO is transforming from a regional association into a global one, and there is already talk of an Asia-Pacific “branch” of the alliance. NATO has become a tool for promoting American ideology, just like the IMF, WTO or the World Bank.

Q: The Americanization of Europe is, in fact, the colonisation of the Old World? Who is behind this? The notorious deep state?

I don’t think there is a “conspiracy theory” at work here. I would talk about the global interests of the United States, which deliberately upset the balance of power after the destruction of the USSR, and the vassalisation of Europe is one of the consequences of such a policy. Yes, there are still islands of disobedience – Hungary with Orban, Slovakia with Fico, Serbia with Vucic, there is the Alternative for Germany or Marine Le Pen in France. But the rest are no longer resisting; the political West has swallowed up the political elite of Europe.

Q: Can the political East balance the situation?

Right now, the process of crystallising a political East is underway. This is not a primitive anti-West, but a conscious counterbalance, an alternative to the political West to ensure a balance of power in Europe and the world. This is just emerging, and is the core is the Russian-Chinese alliance, which wants to return to the “spirit of 1945.” Moscow and Beijing want peace and cooperation rather than confrontation – a return to peace based not on the protectionist “rules” of Washington, but on International Law. BRICS and the SCO are examples of such cooperation. India, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and other rapidly developing states claim that they have a vested interest in avoiding the logic of the Cold War and Atlanticism. They see NATO creeping into the Asian region, but they know that where there is NATO, there will be war. The danger lies in the transformation of NATO from an aggressive regional system into an aggressive global system. The political East – Russia and China – does not want collective defense, but collective security.

Q: Does the West have a scenario for ending anti-Russian sanctions?

I will answer in the words of Lenin. When asked how long the New Economic Policy, introduced in 1922, would last, he replied: “NEP is serious, and for a long time, but not forever.”

Q: Why is the influence of the United States weakening?

I think the problem is that the system created by the political West has become hermetic, closed in on itself. It does not take into account the interests of most of the world because it was created to meet the needs of specific Western countries. It cannot find a common language with systems external to the West – with Russia, China, and the countries of the Global South. This causes protests from countries that do not belong to the political West. Hence the confrontation with Russia, which refused to play by the “rules” imposed by Washington.

Q: You also spoke about the role of the Western military-industrial complex. How much does it influence US policy?

The military-industrial complex today dominates both in the States and throughout the Western world. This is also reflected in the formation of public opinion. The military-industrial complex has united both decision-making centre and the media; this complex needs the image of an enemy – otherwise why arm? Note that the veiled demonisation of Russia continued even after the disappearance of the USSR. And when friction between Moscow and Washington began, it turned out to be very easy to return to the coordinates of the Cold War, where Russia is an existential enemy. Nothing was left of diplomacy, the image of a “fierce Russia” was fixed in the minds of the masses, and then it was easier to declare that they won’t talk to the enemy, they will fight with the enemy. And Ukraine was chosen as the battlefield for this war.

Q: Why did Washington choose Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia, and not, for example, Kazakhstan?

It’s good that you remembered Kazakhstan. This country is self-confident, interested in multipolarity, and the Kazakhs have chosen a smart, multi-vector policy, focusing on cooperation with Russia, China, as well as the West. In Ukraine, they preferred “one master.” It had seemed that Ukraine – which emerged from the USSR as a powerful industrial state – could become a “bridge” between East and West and derive enormous benefits from both the Soviet legacy and its geographical location. Instead, Kiev pointedly turned its back on Russia and scurried to the EU. In 2014, the Ukrainian nationalists who came to power started a war in Donbass. Recently I had the opportunity to communicate with representatives of the DPR, and they said: in 2014 we did not talk about secession from Ukraine, we only asked that they leave the Russian language alone, but they sent an army against us, they started killing us, and this forever turned Donbass away from Ukraine. But the Ukrainians themselves voted twice for peace, choosing Poroshenko and then Zelensky, who promised the peaceful development of the country. But instead of giving Ukrainians the constitutional basis for such a peace, they began to build a “political nation”, ban the Russian language and portray Ukraine as anti-Russia. What happened is what I call the Galicisation of Ukraine.

We need a path to peace, and it lies through the system of European collective security, which includes Russia. But today that system is in ruins.

Q: Don’t you have any comforting forecasts for the foreseeable future?

I’m rather pessimistic! The political West is militarising, not only economically, but also culturally and in terms of mass consciousness. These are steps towards a “hot war.” We are at a turning point when someone’s victory will mean the crushing defeat of others, and then peaceful resolution of conflict becomes less and less realistic.

Q: Can anything change after the November elections in the USA?

Don’t think so. Escalation of the conflict and Europe’s involvement in it is beneficial to the United States, especially since almost all European NATO members have agreed to increase military budgets. Alas, NATO has become an ideological project; and because of this super-ideologisation, the alliance has lost its flexibility and pragmatism, which means it has lost the ability to use a wide range of peaceful opportunities to ensure European security.

Q: Is the idea of dividing Russia into 41 regions still popular in the West today?

Such reasoning can be heard more often from those Russian liberals who have fled to the West. These people consider the fragmentation of Russia inevitable, if there is a new government in Russia or it suffers military defeat in Ukraine. But only a madman can seriously think about such “fragmentation”. Serious politicians do not even consider this scenario, if only because Russia is a nuclear power.

Q: But there are hopes of inciting interethnic conflicts within Russia?

These are groundless hopes. Once I had the opportunity to visit Nizhny Novgorod at the festival of Tatar culture. In a huge hall, where there were Tatars, Russians, and people of other nationalities, the concert went on for four hours, Tatar songs were played, Tatar dances were performed, and then everyone stood up and sang the Russian anthem together. For me, it was a symbol of Russia – a huge multinational, multi-religious country, a common home, where all peoples feel safe, where the state helps develop the national culture of large and small nations. This does not mean that there are no problems, but there are also achievements. The West doesn’t see this and thinks that Russia can be divided along ethnic lines. This is a strategic mistake!

Q: There are such expressions- as “Russian dream”, “American dream”. Does Britisher Richard Sakwa have an “English dream”? How do you see the world in twenty years?

The main thing is that there is peace. I want humanity to arrive at what I would call conservative socialism, or natural socialism, with equality of opportunity and a market economy. In such a society, the law, time-tested traditions, local cultures and languages, must all be respected. Diversity within a single framework. It should be a high-tech, environmentally friendly world of reason and of moderation in all things, with strong states and strong self-government. But to achieve this, it is necessary to break with the psychology of Cold War and confrontation, to get rid of the habit of measuring military strength when it is possible to come to agreements that respect each other’s interests.

I would like to see a world where there is a global order of peace, not war. That is my English dream.

Q: Now, my favourite question: what book would you take with you to a desert island?

I definitely couldn’t get by with just one book. I would definitely take the Bible, a volume of Shakespeare and the complete collection of Dickens. I hope that by the time I finish reading all this, a ship will appear on the horizon that will rescue me!

Richard Sakwa was interviewed by Grigorii Sarkisov.